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Five programs, i.e. TRMM, AMSR-E, ASTER, GOSAT and GCOM-W1 are going on in Japanese Earth Observation
programs. ASTER has lost its short wave infrared channels. AMSR-E stopped its operation, but it started its operation
from Sep. 2012. GCOM-W1 was launched on 18, May, 2012 and is operating well as well as TRMM and GOSAT.
ALOS (Advanced Land Observing Satellite) was successfully launched on 24th Jan. 2006. ALOS carries three
instruments, i.e., PRISM (Panchromatic Remote Sensing Instrument for Stereo Mapping), AVNIR-2 (Advanced Visible
and Near Infrared Radiometer), and PALSAR (Phased Array L band Synthetic Aperture Radar). Unfortunately, ALOS
has stopped its operation on 22nd, April, 2011 by power loss. GOSAT (Greenhouse Gas Observation Satellite) was
successfully launched on 29, January, 2009. GOSAT carries 2 instruments, i.e. a green house gas sensor (TANSOFTS)
and a cloud/aerosol imager (TANSO-CAI). The main sensor is a Fourier transform spectrometer (FTS) and covers
0.76 to 15 μm region with 0.2 to 0.5 cm-1 resolution. SMILES (Super-conducting Millimeter wave Emission
Spectrometer) was launched on September 2009 to ISS and started the observation, but stopped its operation on April
2010. After the unfortunate accident of ADEOS2, JAXA still have plans of Earth observation programs. Next
generation satellites will be launched in 2012-2015 timeframe. They are, GCOM-C (ADEOS-2 follow on), and GPM
(Global Precipitation Mission) core satellite. GPM is a joint project with NASA and will carry two instruments. JAXA
will develop DPR (Dual frequency Precipitation Radar) which is a follow on of PR on TRMM. Another project is
EarthCare. It is a joint project with ESA and JAXA is going to provide CPR (Cloud Profiling Radar). GCOM-C1 will be
launched on fiscal 2016, GPM core satellite will be launched on 2014 and EarthCare will be launched on 2015. ALOS
F/O satellites are divided into two satellites, i.e. SAR and optical satellites. The first one of ALOS F/O is called ALOS 2
and will carry L-band SAR. It will be launched on fiscal 2013. JAXA is planning to launch follow on of optical sensors
on ALOS. GOSAT2 project is going to start and will be launched on 2018.
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